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[Dragon Age 2] Spoilers for Act 3 — you have been warned

So, finished Dragon Age 2, and thoroughly enjoyed the game. For all its faults (repetitive areas, long boss fights, waves of adds in just about every fight), it’s a style of game and writing that I find really compelling.

I’ll write more thoughts on the game when I’ve had time to think it over. I still can’t decide if I liked it more than Dragon Age Origins. It probably was more emotionally involving though for me.

I thought the boss fights were an area where the game really shone. For starters, they weren’t akin to DAO, which had basically two modes for the fights (either “here’s a boss with about forty adds who will kill you” or “it would be a tank and spank if the tank could actually hold aggro”) and was already crippled by party strength directly corresponding to how many mages were in it. The fact that all of them did contain frequently cannon-fodder adds meant that there was actually a benefit to, say, a two-handed warrior over a dual wielding rogue. And the actual strategies involved were compelling sequences, especially the mass chaos toward the end of the final boss fight.

The fact that every combat encounter had several waves, frequently in open areas where party formation was all screwed up, was just a bit grating, though.

From my experience in my normal difficulty play throughs, the one thing that struck me as really odd was the fact that the triple poison spiders during Merril’s 2nd act relationship mission were actually like the second hardest fight in the game. Especially impressive considering the first hardest is the High Dragon fight at the bonepit in Act 3, and the third hardest, for me at least, was the full party battle with the arlishok (double serabaas = pain).

I enjoyed the game, I thought it was worth the money I paid. But it did feel rushed, and I didn’t feel it was up to Bioware’s normal quality.

Was it as good as DA:O? I don’t believe so. The reuse of dungeons was a particular sticking point, but I found the story-within-a-story and the ending to be particularly lacking in oomph. I mean, the ending was really, really lame. Fight is over, and no closure, no what happened to your characters, no what happened to Kirkwall beyond the fact that everyone is revolting across Thedas, etc. Just…the game stops. I dunno if they’re setting up for DLC or a sequel, but I found it unsatisfying, which left a bad taste in my mouth for an otherwise okay game.

Don’t forget that a similar thing happened with KOTOR2, the first was hailed as a masterstroke and yet the second had a change in the story, was rushed out and lacked the gravitas that the first did, so there is a precedent for Bioware to make sequels not quite as good as the original. Mass Effect certainly didn’t suffer from that though.

I think I have to put Origins on the top of the Dragon Age series. Dragon Age 2 comes second with Awakening at the bottom of the list.

Aside from the lack of gameplays, DA2 has amazing story IMO. I mean, look at Origins: the main thing about Origins was Grey Wardens vs Darkspawns. DA2 gives us more: templars vs mages. Sure we’ve seen ‘em too in Origins, but DA2 takes ‘em even higher.

Awakening? Nah. Without Awakening, Origins and DA2 would do just fine (the story plot, of course). But maybe they’ll make Dragon Age 3 which revolves around The Architect & The Mother, so that Awakening doesn’t have to be ‘the game to be forgotten’